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ON THE 


IKONOMATIC METHOD 

OF 

PHONETIC WRITING, 

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 


AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY. 


DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M, M. D, 

ii 


Professor of Archaeology and Linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania. 


Read before the American Philosophical Society, October 1, 1886. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

Press of McCalla & Stavely, 237-9 Dock Street. 

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On the Ihonomatic Method of Phonetic Writing , with Special 

Reference to American Archaeology. By Daniel G. Br inton, 

M.D. 

{Read before the American Philosophical Society , October 1, 1886.) 

All methods of recording ideas have been divided into two 
classes, Thought Writing and Sound Writing. 

The first, simplest and oldest is Thought Writing. This 
in turn is subdivided into two forms, Ikonographic and Sym¬ 
bolic Writing. The former is also known as Imitative, Repre¬ 
sentative or Picture Writing. The object to be held in memory 
is represented by its picture, drawn with such skill, or lack of 
skill, as the writer may possess. In Symbolic Writing, a single 
characteristic part or trait serves to represent the whole object; 
thus, the track of an animal will stand for the animal itself; a 
representation of the peculiar round impression of the wolf’s 
foot, or the three-lined track of the wild turkey, being amply suf¬ 
ficient to designate those creatures. Even the rudest savages 
practice both these forms of writing, and make use of them to 
scratch on rocks, and paint on bark and hides, the record of their 
deeds. 

It will be observed that Thought Writing has no reference to 
spoken language; neither the picture of a wolf, nor the represen¬ 
tation of his footprint, conveys the slightest notion of the sound 
of the word wolf. How was the enormous leap made from the 
thought to the sound, in other words, from an ideographic to a 
phonetic method of writing ? 

This question has received considerable attention from schol¬ 
ars with reference to the development of the two most important 
alphabets of the world, the Egyptian and the Chinese. Both 
these began as simple picture writing, and both progressed to 
almost complete phoneticism. In both cases, however, the earli¬ 
est steps are lost, and can be retraced only by indications re¬ 
maining after a high degree of phonetic power had been reached. 
On the other hand, in the Mexican and probably in the Maya 
hieroglyphics, we find a method of writing which is intermediate 
between the two great classes I have mentioned, and which illus¬ 
trates in a striking manner the phases through which both the 


4 


Egyptian and Sinitic alphabets passed somewhat before the 
dawn of histor}". 

To this method, which stands midway between the ikonographic 
and the alphabetic methods of writing, I have given the name ikono- 
matic, derived from the Greek sckwv-ovus, an image, a figure ; ovopa- 
ar«c, a name. That which the figure or picture refers to is not 
the object represented, but the name of that object—a sound , 
not a thing. But it does not refer to that sound as the name of 
/the object, but precisely the contrary—it is the sound of the 
name of some other object or idea. Many ideas have no objec¬ 
tive representation, and others are much more simply expressed 
by the use of figures whose names are familiar and of similar sound. 
Thus, to give a simple example, the infinitive “ to hide ” could 
be written by a figure 2, and the picture of a skin or hide. It is 
this plan on which those familiar puzzles are constructed which 
are called rebuses , and none other than this w r hich served to 
bridge over the wide gap between Thought and Sound writing. 
It is, however, not correct to say that it is a writing by things 
“rebus;” but it is by the names of things, and hence I have 
coined the word ikonomatic , to express this clearly. 

I shall select several illustrations from two widely diverse 
sources, the one the hieroglyphs of Egypt, the other the heraldry 
of the Middle Ages, and lrom these more familiar fields obtain 
some hints of service in unraveling the intricacies of the Mexi¬ 
can and Maya scrolls. 

The general principle which underlies “ikonomatic writing ” is 
the presence in a language of words of different meaning but 
with the same or similar sounds ; that is, of homophonous words. 
The figure which represents one of these is used phonetically to 
signify the other. There are homophones in all languages ; but 
they abound in some more than in others. For obvious reasons, 
they are more abundant in languages which tend toward mono- 
syllabism, such as the Chinese and the Maya, and in a lesser de¬ 
gree the ancient Coptic. In these it is no uncommon occurrence 
to find four or five quite different meanings to the same word; 
that is, the same sound has served as the radical for that many 
different names of diverse objects. The picture of any one of 
these objects would, to the speaker of the language, recall a 
sound which would have all these significations, and could be 


5 


employed indifferently for any of them. This circle of meanings 
would be still more widely extended when mere similarity, not 
strict identity, was aimed at. 

Suoh was plainly the origin of phoneticism in the Egyptian 
hieroglyphic inscriptions. Take the word nefer. Its most com¬ 
mon concrete signification was “a lute,” and in the picture 
writing proper the lute is represented by its figure. But nefer 
had several other significations in Coptic. It meant, a colt , a 
conscript soldier , a door , and the adjective good. The picture 
of the lute therefore was used to signify every one of these. 

It will be observed that this is an example of a pure ikono- 
graph. The picture is that of the object in full, a lute ; but pre¬ 
cisely in the same way the second class of figures in picture 
writing, those which are wholly symbolic, may be employed. 
This, too, finds ample illustration in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
Instead of the picture of a house, the figure of a square was em¬ 
ployed, with one side incomplete. Phonetically, this conveyed 
the sound per , which means house , and several other things. 

It will readily be seen that where a figure represents a number 
of homophonous words, considerable confusion may result from 
the difficulty of ascertaining which of these is intended. To 
meet this, we find both in Egyptian and Chinese writing series 
of signs which are written but not pronounced, called “ determi¬ 
natives.” These indicate the class to which a word has reference. 
'They are ideographic, and of fixed meaning. Thus, after the 
word nefer , when used for conscript, the determinative is the 
picture of a man, etc.* 

There is little doubt but that all the Egyptian syllabic and 
alphabetic writing was derived from this early phase, where the 
governing principle was that of the rebus. At the date of the 
earliest inscriptions, most of the phonetics were monosyllabic; 
but in several instances, as nefer , above given, neter , which 
represents a banner, and by homophony, a god, and others, the 
full dissyllabic name was preserved to the latest times. The 

♦The following elements occur In the old Egyptian writing: 

1 . Ideographic.—(a) Pictures or ikonographs. 

(6) Symbols. 

(c) Determinatives. 

2 . Phonetic.—(a) Words. 

(6) Syllables. 

(c) Letters. 


6 


monosyllabic signs were derived from the initial and the accented 
syllables of the homophones; and the alphabet, so-called, but never 
recognized as such, by the Egyptians, either from monoliteral 
words, or from initial sounds. At no period of ancient Egyptian 
history was one sound constantly represented by one sign. In the 
so-called Egyptian alphabet, there are four quite different signs 
for the Jf, four for the T, three for the JV, and so on. This is 
obviously owing to the independent derivation of these phonetic 
elements from different figures employed ikonomatically. 

There are other peculiarities in the Egyptian script, which are 
to be explained by the same historic reason. For instance, cer¬ 
tain phonetic signs can be used only in definite combinations; 
others must be assigned fixed positions, as at the beginning or 
at the end of a group; and, in other cases, two or more different 
signs, with the same phonetic value, follow one another, the 
scribe thinking that if the reader was not acquainted with one, he 
would be with the other. I note these peculiarities, because they 
may be expected to recur in other systems of ikonomatic 
writing, and may serve as hints in interpreting them. 

Evidently, one of the earliest stimuli to the development of pho¬ 
netics was the wish to record proper names, which in themselves 
nad no definite signification, such as those drawn from a foreign 
language, or those which had lost through time their original sense. 
In savage conditions every proper name is significant; but in 
conditions of social life, as developed as that of the Egyptians of 
the earliest dynasties, and as that of the Mayas and Mexicans in 
the New World, there are found many names without meaning 
in the current tongue. These could not be represented by any 
mode of picture writing. To be recorded at all, they must be 
written phonetically; and to accomplish this the most obvious 
plan was to select objects whose names had a similar sound, and 
by portraying the latter, represent to the ear the former. The 
Greek names, Alexander and Alexandria, occurring on the Rosetta 
Stone, were wholly meaningless to the Egyptian ear; but their 
scribes succeeded in expressing them very nearly by a series of 
signs which in origin are rebuses. 

This inception of the ikonomatic method, in the effort to ex¬ 
press phonetically proper names, is admirably illustrated in 
mediaeval heraldry. Very early in the history of armorial bear- 


i 


7 


ings, we find a class of scutal devices called in Latin arma can- 
tantia, in English canting arms, in French armes parlantes. The 
English term canting is from the Latin cantare, in its later 
sense of chanting or announcing. Armorial bearings of this 
character present charges, the names of which resemble more or 
less closely in sound the proper names of the family who carry 
them. 

Some writers on heraldry have asserted that bearings of this 
character should be considered as what are known as assumptive 
arms , those which have been assumed by families, without just 
title. Excellent authorities, however, such as Woodham and 
Lower, have shown that these devices were frequent in the remot¬ 
est ages of heraldry.* For instance, in the earliest English Roll 
of Arms extant, recorded in the reign of the third Henry, about 
the year 1240, nine such charges occur, and still more in the 
Rolls of the time of Edward the Second. They are also abun¬ 
dant in the heraldry of Spain, of Italy and of Sweden; and 
analogous examples have been adduced from ancient Rome. In 
fact, the plan is so obvious that instances could be adduced from 
every quarter of the globe. In later centuries, such punning 
allusions to proper names became unpopular in heraldry, and are 
now considered in bad taste. 

To illustrate their character, I will mention a few which are of 
ancient date. The well-known English family of Dobells carry a 
hart passant, and three bells argent, thus expressing very accu¬ 
rately their name, doe^ells. The equally ancient family of Bol¬ 
tons carry a device representing a cask or tun, transfixed by a 
crossbow or bolt. Few canting arms, however, are so perfect as 
these. The Swinburnes, who are among those mentioned on the 
Roll of 1210, already referred to, bear three boar-heads, symboli¬ 
cal of swine; the Boleynes carry three bulls’ heads, which re¬ 
minds us of Cardinal Wolsey’s pronunciation of the name in 
Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Bullen : 

‘•Anne Bullen? No; I’ll no Anne Bullens for him : 

There’s more in’t than fair visage.—Bullen ! 

No, we’ll no Bullens .”—King Henry VIII, Act Hi. 

Not rarely the antiquity of such bearings is evidenced by the 

♦ See M. A. Lower, Curiosities of Heraldry, Chap, vi (London, 1815). An appro¬ 
priate motto of one of these bearings was ; “ Nou verbis sed rebus loquimur.” 


8 


loss of the allusion in the current language, and recourse must 
he had to ancient and obsolete words to appreciate it. The Eng¬ 
lish Harrisons display in their shield a hedgehog, which is to be 
explained by the French lierixson , and testifies to their Norman 
origin. The Sykes of the north of England show a fountain in 
their shield, whose significance is first ascertained on learning 
that in the Northumbrian dialect syke means a flowing spring 
or stream. The celebrated Jleurs-de-lys of the royal house of 
France are traced back to the first Louis, whose name was pro¬ 
nounced Loys , and from the similarity of this to the common 
name of the flower, the latter was adopted as the charge on his 
shield. 

Hundreds of such examples could be adduced, and the task of 
examining and analyzing them would not be an altogether vain 
one, as the principles upon which they were applied are the same 
which control the development of ikonomatic writing wherever 
we find it. But I pass from the consideration of these facts of 
general knowledge to the less known and much misunderstood 
forms of this writing which are presented in American archae¬ 
ology. 

These are best exemplified in the so-called Mexican picture 
writing. For many years scholars have been divided in opinion 
whether this was purely ikonographic or partly phonetic. About 
forty years ago M. Aubin wrote an essay maintaining that it is 
chiefly phonetic, and laid down rules for its interpretation on 
this theor}'. But neither he nor any who undertook to apply 
his teachings succeeded in offering any acceptable renderings of 
the Aztec Codices. I am persuaded, however, that the cause of 
this failure lay, not in the theory of Aubin, but in the two facts, 
first, that not one of the students who approached this subject was 
well grounded in the Nahuatl language; and, secondly, that the 
principles of the interpretation of ikonomatic writing have never 
been carefully defined, and are extremely difficult, ambiguous 
and obscure, enough so to discourage any one not specially 
gifted in the solution of enigmas. At first, every identification 
is as puzzling as the effort to decipher an artificial rebus. 

There are, indeed, some able scholars who still deny that any 
such phoneticism is to be found in Mexican pictography. To 
convince such of their error, and to illustrate the methods em- 


I 

9 

ployed by these native American scribes, I will present and 
analyze several typical examples from Aztec manuscripts. 

Beginning with proper names drawn from other languages, 
we find that the Nahuas had a number of such, which, of course, 
had no meaning in their own tongue. One of their documents 
speaks of the town of the Huastecas, called by that tribe Tam- 
uch , which ^ means in their tongue “ near the scorpions,” and by 
the Aztecs, in imitation, Tamuoc* As the Huasteca is a Maya 
dialect, totally distinct from the Nahuatl, this word had no sense 
to the ears of the Aztecs. To convey its sound, they portrayed 
a man holding in his hands a measuring stick, 
and in the act of measuring. Now, in Nahuatl. 
the verb “ to measure ” is tamachiua ; the meas, 
uring stick is octocatl; and, to make the latter 
plainer, several foot-prints, xoctli , are painted 
upon the measuring stick, giving an example 
of the repetition of the sound, such as we have 
already seen was common among the Egyptian 
scribes. 

In another class of proper names, in their own tongue, 
although they had a meaning in the Nahuatl, the scribe preferred 
to express them by ikonomatic instead of ikonographic devices. 
Thus, Mapachtepec , means, literally, “badger 
hill,” or “ badger town,” but in place of depict¬ 
ing a badger, the native writer made a drawing 
of a hand grasping a bunch of Spanish moss,the 
Tillandsia usneoides. The hand or arm in Na¬ 
huatl is maitl , the moss pachtli; and taking the 
first syllables of these two words we obtain ma 
pack: the word tepee , locative form of tepetl , 

hill or village, is expressed by the usual conven- „ „ 

& ’ r r . Fig. 2.—Mapacbte- 

tional ideographic or determinative sign. pec . 

In other names, the relative position of the objects are signifi¬ 
cant, reminding us of the rebus of a well known town in Mas¬ 
sachusetts, celebrated for its educational institutions : 

& 

Mass. 

* Tam , near; uch, scorpion. Dlccionario Huasteca-Espaflol, MS., in my posses- 
sion. This and most of the other instances quoted are to be found in Lord 
Kingsborough’s great work on Mexico, and also in Dr. Pefiaflel’s Catdlogo Alfa- 
betico de los Nombres de Lugares pertenecientes al Idioma Nahuatl (Mexico, 1885). 





V 




Fig. 1.—Tamuoc. 



10 


which is to be read, “ Andover, Massachusetts,” so in the Aztec 
scrolls, we have itzmiquilpan represented by an obsidian knife, 
itztli , and an edible plant, quilitl, which are placed above or over 
(pan), the sign for cultivated land, milli , 
thus giving all the elements of the name, the 
last syllable by position only. 

In one respect I believe the ikonomatic 
writing of the Mexicans is peculiar; that is, 
in the phonetic value which it assigns to col- 
hike the Egyptian, it is polychromatic, 



"»mi n [/1, nn r ii| 


Fig. 3.—Itzmiquilpan. 


ors. 


but, so far as 1 know, the Egyptian polychromes never had a 
phonetic value ; they were, in a general way, used by that people 
as determinatives, from some supposed similarity of hue; thus 
green indicates a vegetable substance or bronze, yellow, certain 
woods and some animals, and so on. In heraldry the colors are 
very important and have well-defined significations, but very 
seldom, if ever, phonetic ones. Quite the contrary is the case 
with the Mexican script. It presents abundant instances where 
the color of the object as portrayed is an integral phonetic ele¬ 
ment of the sound designed to be conveyed. 

To quote examples, the Nahuatl word for yellow is cuztic or 
coztic , and when the hieroglyphics express phonetically such 
proper names as Acozpa , Cozamaloapan , Gozhuipilcan , etc., the 
monosyllable coz is expressed solely by the yellow color which 
the scribe la 3 r s upon his picture. Again, the name Xiuliuacan , 
u the place of grass,” is represented by 
a circle colored pale blue, hxiutic. The 
name of this tint supplies the phonetic 
desired. The name of the village 
Tlapan is conveyed by a circle, whose 
interior is painted red, tlapalli , contain¬ 
ing the mark of a human foot-print. 
Such examples are sufficient to prove 
that in undertaking to decipher the 
Mexican writing we must regard the 
color as well as the figure, and be pre¬ 
pared to allow to each a definite phonetic value. 

It must not be understood that all the Aztec writing is 
made up of phonetic symbols. This is far from being the case. 
We discover among the hundreds of curious figures which it pre- 



Fig. 4.—Acozpa. 





11 


sents, determinatives, as in the Egyptian inscriptions, and nu¬ 
merous ideograms. Sometimes the ideogram is associated with 
the phonetic symbol, acting as a sort of determinative to the 
latter. An interesting example of this is given at the beginning 
of the “ Manuscripto Hieratico,” recently published by the Span¬ 
ish government * It is the more valuable as an example, as the 
picture writing is translated into Nahuatl and written in Spanish 



Fig. 5 .—Tlamapa. 

characters. The date of the document, 1526, leaves no doubt 
that it is in the same style as the ancient Codices. The page is 
headed with the picture of a church edifice ; underneath is the 
outline of a human arm, and the legend in Nahuatl is : 

In Altepetl y Santa Cruz Tlamapa. 

These words mean, “ the town of Santa Cruz Tlamapa.” The 
name “tlamapa ” means “on the hillside,” and doubtless originally 

* It is given in the appendix to the Ensayo sobre la Interpretacion de la Escri- 
lura Hieratica de la America Central , by De Rosny, translated by D. Juan de 
Dios de la Rada y Delgada (Madrid, 1881). 
































12 


referred to the position in which the village was situated. But 
the prefix “ tlama ” usually signifies, u to do something with the 
arms or hands,” derived from maitl, hand or arm. Hence, the 
figure of the extended arm gives this dissyllable, tlama , which 
was sufficient to recall the name of the town. 

The Aztecs by no means confined the ikonomatic system to 
proper names. They composed in it words, sentences, and trea¬ 
tises on various subjects. In proportion as it is applied to these 
connected and lengthy compositions, its processes become more 
recondite, curious and difficult of interpretation. Without a 
knowledge of the spoken language considerably more than rudi¬ 
mentary, it would be hopeless for the student to attempt to solve 
the enigmas which he meets at every step. Yet every well- 
directed effort will convince him that he is on the right track, 
and he will constantly be cheered and stimulated to further en¬ 
deavor by the victories he will win day by day. 

Few indeed have the requisite preliminary knowledge and the 
gift of insight into verbal puzzles to attain brilliant success. 
Among those who have pursued with marked and gratifying re¬ 
sults this intricate study, it gives me pleasure to name Mrs. Zelia 
Nuttall Pinart. This lady has unraveled a number of the pages 
of the Vienna Codex and several of the monolithic inscriptions 
which have been handed down from ancient Mexico. With com¬ 
mendable caution she has refrained from publishing her results 
until they could be presented, supported by such proofs that they 
cannot be questioned ; but, from a personal examination of them, 
I do not hesitate to say that they will be found to come up to 
the highest standard of scientific requirements.* 

The analogy which is presented in so many particulars be¬ 
tween Mexican and Maya civilization would lead us to infer that, 
the Maya writing, of which we have a number of examples well 
preserved, should be unlocked by the same key which has been 
successfully applied to the Aztec Codices. The latest writers on 
the Maya manuscripts, while agreeing that they are in part, at 
least, in phonetic characters, consider them mostly ideographic. 
But it is to be noted that not one of these writers has any prac¬ 
tical acquaintance with the sounds of the Maya language, and 

* Several of Mrs. Pinart’s interpretations were exhibited to the Anthropologi¬ 
cal Section of-tlie American, Association for the Advancement of Science at its 
last meeting (Buffalo, and were favorably received by the members. 


13 


scarcely any with its vocabulary. From this it is evident that 
even were these codices in ikonomatic writing, such investigators 
could make very little progress in deciphering them, and might 
readily come to the conclusion that the figures are not phonetic 
in any sense. Precisely the same position was taken by a num¬ 
ber of students of Egyptian antiquity long after the announce¬ 
ment of the discovery of Champollion ; and even within a few 
years works have been printed denying all phoneticism to the 
Nilotic inscriptions. 

What induces me to believe that much of the Maya script is 
of the nature of the Mexican is the endeavor, undertaken for a 
very different purpose, of Professor Yalentini to explain the 
origin of the so-called Ma}^a alphabet, preserved by Bishop 
Landa, and printed in the editions of his celebrated “ Descrip¬ 
tion of Yucatan.”* Professor Yalentini shows by arguments 
and illustrations, which I think are in the main correct, that 
when the natives were asked to represent the sounds of the 
Spanish letters in their method of writing, they selected objects 
to depict, whose names, or initial sounds, or first syllables, were 
the same, or akin, to the sounds of the Spanish vowel or conso¬ 
nant heard by them. Sometimes they would give several words, 
with their corresponding pictures, for the same sound ; just as 
I have shown was the custom of the ancient Egyptians. Thus, 
for the sound b they drew a foot-print, which in their tongue was 
called be ; for the sound a an obsidian knife, in Maya, ach , etc. 
Yalentini thinks also that the letter E was delineated by black 
spots, in Maya eek , meaning black, which, if proved by further 
research, would show that the Mayas, like the Mexicans, attrib¬ 
uted phonetic values to the colors they employed in their painted 
scrolls. 

Outside of the two nations mentioned, the natives of the Ameri¬ 
can continent made little advance toward a phonetic system. 
We have no positive evidence that even the cultivated Tarascas 
and Zapotecs had anything better than ikonographs; and of the 
Quiches and Cakchiquels, both near relatives of the Mayas, we 
only know that they had a written literature of considerable ex- 

* Valentini’s Essay appeared in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian 
Society, April, 1880. Landa’s work was originally published by the Abbe Bras- 
seur (de Bourbourg) at Paris, 1864, and more accurately at Madrid, 1884, under 
the supervision of Don Juan de Dios do la Itada y Delgada. 


1 


14 


tent, but of the plan by which it was preserved we have only ob¬ 
scure hints. Next to these we should probably place the Chipe- 
way pictography, as preserved on their meda sticks, bark 
records, and adjidjiatig or grave-posts. I have examined a num¬ 
ber of specimens of these, but have failed to find any evidence 
that the characters refer to sounds in the language ; however, I 
shoul^l not consider it improbable that further researches should 
disclose some germs of the ikonomatic method of writing even 
in these primitive examples of the desire of the human intellect 
to perpetuate its aquisitions, and hand them down to generations 
yet unborn. 









































































































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